| About Wally
Moon: Early Life
|
 |
Born April 3, 1930 and named for
Wallace Wade, the legendary college
football coach at Alabama and Duke
Universities, Wally Moon grew up
in the cotton-picking country of
Craighead County Arkansas, in the
little town of Bay. It was so little,
Moon remembers, "We couldn't
field a baseball team. So, as a
youngster, I used to hitchhike 16
miles to Jonesboro with our gang
to play."
Wally's father, Bert, played
baseball with an Arkansas team
called the Red Birds, and Wally
liked to wear his dad's uniform.
But, better yet, he liked playing
the game. When he wasn't playing
baseball, young Moon was on the
sandlot basketball courts or fishing
and hunting with his dad and his
brother, Wayne. In between, he
found time for the Boy Scouts.
At Bay High School, Wally played
both baseball and basketball,
and though he made All-District
in baseball, he considered a career
on the hard court. Later, at Texas
A&M University, where he obtained
his undergraduate degree, he starred
again in basketball and baseball.
In 1950, baseball offers started
to come in.
Moon played three summers of
minor-league ball with Omaha of
the Western League and returned
each fall and spring to A&M
for more education and his job
as freshman baseball coach. It
was during the off-season of 1951
that Moon met his future wife,
Bettye Knowles. After a six-week
courtship, Wally and Bettye married…and
remain married 57 years later.
In the spring of 1952, Wally
received his master's degree in
administrative education. Despite
a lukewarm season at Omaha that
summer, he was offered a minor-league
contract at Rochester for the
following year. By this time,
Wally had established himself
as an up-and-coming young baseball
coach at A&M. Signing the
Rochester contract would mean
less money and an uncertain future-at
a time when the Moons were expecting
their first child. "But,
I wanted to take another shot
at baseball," Wally says,
"to prove to myself that
I could make it."
And, make it he did, in a big
way in 1954.
|
